United
States Navy had several types of aircraft
carriers. All of them served for the US Navy with different roles such as transport, arming etc. In this post, we will take a look at some of these aircraft
carriers and their qualifications.
USS Boxer : It was an Essex-class
aircraft carrier. Its first launch was on 14 December 1944
and named by the daughter of a US Senator from Louisiana. The
ship was one of the "long-hull" designs of the class. Like
other "long-hull" Essex-class carriers, Boxer had
a displacement of 27,100 tones (26,700
long tons; 29,900 short tons). She had an overall
length of 888 feet (271 m), a beam of 93 feet (28 m) and a draft of 28 feet (8.5 m).
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| USS Boxer |
USS Ranger : It is one of the oldest
aircraft carriers of the US Navy. Duty of this ship began in 1925. Ranger, had a narrow hull due to
its size and one inch of armor on the hangar deck. Through to space limits, the
carrier was equipped with geared turbines. The design was modified to include
an island, increasing the ship's displacement to 14,500 tons. Ranger was armed with six 40 mm quadruple
mounts and forty-six 20 mm mounts. It also was armed with eight 5-inch (127 mm)/25 caliber guns, which were removed in June 1944. The
carrier was one of the first U.S. Navy ships mounted with light automatic
weapons to defend against dive-bombing attacks, and was initially armed with
forty .50 cal machine guns.
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| USS Ranger |
USS Essex : It was the lead ship of Essex-class aircraft carriers. After the end of the war, she was modernized in the
early 1950s as an attack carrier. It cost 78
million USD for US Navy. Essex moved
to the Pacific in May 1943. Departing from Pearl Harbor, she participated with Task Force 16 (TF 16) in carrier operations
against Marcus Island.
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| USS Essex |
USS Hornet : It was a Yorktown-class aircraft carrier. During the World War II, in
the Pacific Theater, she launched the Doolittle Raid on Tokyo and participated in
the Battle of
Midway and the Buin-Faisi-Tonolai
Raid. Hornet was attacked by a dive
bomber. In 15 minutes, Hornet was hit by three bombs
from Aichi D3A "Val" dive bombers. After being
heavily damaged by an anti-aircraft fire, it crashed into the carrier's island,
killing seven men and spreading burning aviation gas (Avgas) over the deck.
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| USS Hornet |
USS Hornet II : It wasn’t a Yorktown-class
like the Hornet I. It was an Essex-class aircraft carrier. It was built
during the World War II. It was named USS Kearsarge at first, but was renamed in honor of
the prior USS Hornet, which was lost in 1942.
On 11 June 1944, Hornet launched raids on Tinian and Saipan.
The following day, she conducted heavy bombing attacks on Guam and Rota. Now it’s a museum ship at the USS Hornet Museum in California.
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| USS Hornet II |
In this post, we take a look at the aircraft carriers of the U.S Navy. Hope you find what you are looking for or this post satisfies you. Hope to meet you at another post!
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